This Is What I Love About A Rainy Sunday

• Eating my great grandmother's zucchini bread instead of a real lunch.
• Finally getting around to sorting all those socks at the bottom of the laundry basket.
• Birdwatching on a rainy day is the best. Dozens of finches and cardinals and chickadees and tufted titmice (titmouses??) on the poplar out back plus the red bellied woodpecker that came to visit the newest feeder today. Mmm...suet, anyone?
• My Christmas cactus is blooming. I inherited this plant in the spring and had no idea what it was or what to do with it. Everyone always comments on its perkiness. Now it's covered in red buds.
• Maybe I'll take a nap. Maybe I won't.
• I finished a book that made me want to cry and figured out a few things in the process. (The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd if you're wondering).
• I only realized about an hour ago it's only Sunday. We still have the other half of a four day weekend to go.
• I also realized earlier that I've watched my words too carefully on this blog the past few months...something that defeats the whole purpose of posting for me. Not that I have anything provocative to say today or most days. But I thought I should throw out the warning :)
• The best part of today? It's not even close to being over yet.

I Can't Believe I Forgot To Mention The Best Part

What can make an evening more perfect than finding out that there is one other person in the world that knows the song about the Erie Canal? And starts singing it at the exact same moment that you do? I swear we were separated at birth. Otherwise, there is no explanation for the freakishness that is our coincidence.

Mr. Bartender,

That's what I'm talking about! Thanks for the best December 28th/29ishth I've had in recent memory. Even if you did cut my hair with kid scissors. Even if you did make me eat that cookie so I wouldn't be "rude." Even if that piece of Nerds Rope had a bit of CE drool on it. Even if I did lose the last hand of the night. Even if all sentences had to end in Bee-yotch. Even with Debbie Gibson singing it like it should be. It was fun :)

This Is What Procrastination Will Get You

For about two or three years now we've been taking a "back roads" way to get to my dad's house. And, there by the side of one of these rural winding roads is a pair of trees that I love...a giant oak tree - ancient branches spreading out forever and, underneath, a 20 foot straight and tall evergreen. The smaller tree doesn't even begin to reach the lower branches of the oak. The two trees stand together in a field by themselves and remind me of a parent and child every single time we drive past. And every time I wish I had my camera and say that I need to stop and take a picture someday. (Because if you don't know this already, I have a thing for trees).

So, this year we're driving down the road and I look to my left, anxiously awaiting my first glimpse of the trees. I see the top of the oak as we get closer and, then, suddenly we're zooming past and I realize that the evergreen has been cut down. The big tree is standing by itself in the middle of the field now with no one to watch over. Silly that a missing tree would disappoint me so much? Probably. But it did. I wish I had taken that photo...

Remember When I Foolishly Spoke

And said I wasn't going to drive anywhere today? Oh, I was so, so very wrong. Not including errands that I decided not to put off (library, grocery store, pet store) I had to drive an additional 140 miles to pick up my daughter who decided that she was in no way spending another day with her grandparents. Sheesh. No wonder I'm getting nothing done around here...too much time spent in the car this week. And, after all that, I just found out that J used all the dishwasher detergent and forgot to tell me...back to the store I go...tomorrow.